HTC Touch Pro vs SE Xperia X1 – the keyboard
For both the HTC Touch Pro and to a lesser extent the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, the claim to fame is the keyboard. Its a good thing the Xperia has other great features like its panel interface and 800×480 screen, as the keyboard is certainly one of its weaker points.
When compared to the HTC Touch Pro keyboard, who’s defining feature is its 57 key keyboard, the Xperia’s shortcomings are placed in stark contrast.
Not only are both keyboards the same size, despite the greater width of the Xperia keyboard, but despite having less keys than the Touch Pro, they keys are also mostly the same size. You therefore have to reach much further with your thumbs to little benefit on the Xperia. In my experience the separation of the keys on the Xperia does not help typing speed at all. When using the top row of they keyboard the screen section also encroaches much more than on the Touch Pro, and of course the top QWERTY row is used much more commonly than the numeric row of the Touch Pro.
The Xperia keyboard’s greatest sin however is the poor tactility of they keyboard. Most of the keys are actually OK, but the space bar is actually horrendous, making one never sure whether the key press has actually been registered or not.
This is not however the end of the litany of issues. In addition the contrast between the labeling of the letters on the keys and the keys themselves are really poor, and the keys are chromed and slightly pyramidal, meaning you are always having reflections on the keys making the labels even more difficult to see. The back light is also pretty weak, meaning the situation is not much improved even at night.
In addition while the Xperia keyboard has important keys like Start and OK, it lacks basics such as arrow keys.
The HTC Touch Pro suffers from none of these issues. They keys are easy to reach, have good tactility, there is good contrast between the keys and the lettering with a strong back light, and are therefore easy to read in all lighting conditions. There is a more than full complement of keys, with only the Ok and Start keys missing.
In short, I feel the Xperia keyboard is pretty horrendous, such that I often prefer using the standard on-screen Windows Mobile soft keyboard. I find in contrast the HTC Touch Pro is a pleasure to use.
In summary, I suggest one should not buy the Xperia for its keyboard. In this particular regard, I feel the HTC Touch Pro is a much better choice.
Both the Xperia X1 and HTC Touch Pro are available on Expansys.
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Posted in Opinion, new device, review | 
Tags: htc touch pro, review, sony ericsson xperia x1, xperia x1
Touch Pro has laptop class keyboard, but just look at X1 keyboard. ??
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I have the TP and for sure the tp keyboard is much better than xperia. The missing arrows in the xperia is a big disadvantage. The are also some shortcuts in the touch pro like sms, e-mails, ctrl x, z, c, and others that are not in xperia. For all these points I see that TP is the winner here. Htc is still the king of WM.
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Didn’t Htc manufacture both devices? I sense a conspiracy! they screwed Sony Ericsson!!
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I agree that the Touch Pro Keyboard is overall better than the Xperia one.
If you are a Pro reviewer: “Horrible” sounds likea very SUBJECTIVE opinion.
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But why did you have to enlarge the Touch Pro photo to make the Pro keyboard look much larger that it really is? about 7/16″ that’s almost 1/2″ wider
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-I mesured them with a caliper, and the keys area in the Xperia is about 7/16″ wider. But in your photo looks about the same width.
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touch pro might have laptop keyboard, but it has yesterday screen resolutions!
Sony X1 with 800×480, that’s almost like your home monitor! haha
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@pinguino1 I agree that calling it horrible is subjective, but due to the large number of issues I believe that judgement is justified. If it was only one or two things, but it seems nearly everything that could go wrong with a keyboard did here.
The picture is not enlarged at all, but of course optical illusions do happen. I have taken my ruler to both keyboards and the new drawing above is the result. The Xperia’s keyboard base is 6mm wider, but the keyboard itself is only 1 mm wider. The base before the screen section is 30mm deep on the Xperia and 37 mm on the Touch Pro. The Xperia keyboard is only 22 mm deep, while the keyboard on the Touch Pro is 30mm deep. On the Xperia the Q key is a small 6 x 4 mm, while on the Touch Pro they are a larger 7 x 6 mm.
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all I can say, as a Touch Pro *AND* a Xperia user, I have the chance to experience the keyboard (and everything else) on daily basis, and could compare the two keyboards based on my in-depth usage of the respective keyboards,
I would say what’s say about the ‘horrible’ experience in the Xperia keyboard just doesn’t hold, not to me.
I must be the odd one here who think that I would choose Xperia keyboard over Touch Pro. Sometimes having more keys doesn’t mean anything.
Enough said!
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I agreed with Zen. I tried both keyboard of TP and X1 before…I’m not a fast typer so I will not comment on speed. But for accuracy, I also choose X1 over TP because I end up with more typing mistakes with TP keyboard as compared to X1 which is near zero error. TP keys are too closely arranged, so I prefer X1 which is better spreadout.
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I never used any of those two, but i’m using nokia e70 with keyboard similar to touch pro in case of shape of the keys, and have colours similar to xperia. keybord is realy great for typing and uses light sensor to adjust backlighting, the interisting thing is that when in direct sunlight the backlight is off making the leters contrast the silver colour of the keys themself, and in addition it has key to turn on or off backlight permanently.
So from my experiance with e70 keyboard i’ll choose touch pro.
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what is the craps about X1 keyboard got no feedback??
i certainly can feel the X1 keyboard feedback!
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To ADMIN: Thanks for reposting. Please don’t take it as an offense. I try never to do that. But we disagree with your post and I understand it is mostly about subjective issues.
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The following is not subjective:
The Xperia keyboard has more space around the keys for the finger when pressing the key than the Touch pro Keys with no space around.
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That extra room gives CONFIDENCE to the typist that is NOT touching the next key, hence people can type faster with less errors and looking less at the keyboard.
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The Xperia keyboard is wider than the T Pro. Let me prove it Using Your Own Numbers :
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The Pro keys have no space between keys.
The space for a finger without touching the next key is = 7×6 mm
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The Xperia keys have a space (2mm) ALL AROUND the keys for FAT fingers.
So the total space for a finger without touching the next key is = 10×8 mm (this settle that, doesn’t it?)
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The total width of the Pro keyboard is 84mm:
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| 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 |7| = 84mm
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The total width of the Xperia Keyboard is 94mm:
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|6|2|6|2|6|2|6|2|6|2|6|2|6|2|6|2|6|2|6|2|6|2|6| = 94mm
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10mm diff is about 7/16” which is what I said in my previous post
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All this is cold numbers, everything else I can say is subjective, it’s a feeling. For example: It’s easier and faster to glance at one key out 37 than out 57. For these small keyboards 5 rows is too much, 4 is more appropriate. The square chess board layout of the PRO makes harder o find a key, while the desktop layout of the Xperia keys is more intuitive. Simpler it’s always better.
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I give you one: The bounce in the pro is nice. But that doesn’t make the Xperia “Horrible”
As a reviewer whenever you steer off the Objective evaluation into the Subjective, you are going to have the reactions that you got from your readers EVEN YOU ARE RIGHT because they have their own subjective opinions.
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@pinguino1 Of course no offense taken, and hopefully most readers of the article will also read the comments and see your rebuttal. I think in response I will add some words to make it clear my assessment is subjective.
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One problem I faced with Touch Pro keyboard is the keys are all flushed, so you have no feel for the key unlike that in Xperia.
Seriously, you cannot write off X1 just because of an hour of review. I had my share of disappointment when I first tried out Xperia keyboard at the SE store. So I will be lying if I say it’s the best out there and will wow you on first impression! However, I did give Xperia a second chance when I decided I should go back to the store again and try the keyboard, paying attention to the layout and making the necessary adjustment. Turns out quite abit of adaption is required because of the adaption I had made with Touch Pro, which obviously have a different keyboard layout.
Having used many QWERTY phones before, I still rate Q9h for its best keyboard, and Xperia after that. Even though Xperia could give Q9h a run for its money in terms of the keyboard experience and ergonomic, I give it to Q9h given that it’s keyboard is smaller than that of Xperia. Although I appreciate Touch Pro’s bonus keys (arrow keys, ctl key, etc) but that doesn’t put them top in the list against the likes of Q9h, Xperia, etc.
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@Zen- I just want to note that I used the Xperia as my exclusive phone/pda for around 2 weeks before writing this review, and part of my work is keeping notes on my smartphone. The keyboard really frustrated me, such that I would often rather whip out the stylus (which is on the wrong side btw for a right handed person) and use the Soft keyboard.
I did not call it horrible lightly.
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[...] friends @ wmpoweruser.com did a comparison between the two head over to the post ClickMe for their take on the keyboard on these 2 [...]
Having tried both devices, i must say that i prefer the Xperia, i found the keys tactility much better than the touch pro. Because the keys are butted up to each other on the touch, muli-key presses happened much more often on the touch.
When you also add the fact that the main touchflo userinterface can be added to the xperia, i think it has more going for it.
Which is ‘better’ is very much a user issue, and as a happy user of the Xperia, one of it’s strengths is the customisation of the unit to each users requirements.
I would say that the caps and function lock lights would be a great addition to the xperia.
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I simply love my HTC Touch Pro ! The physical specs and keyboard are ideal for 24/7 remote technical IT support for my company. I can VPN and RDP from everywhere and have enough space on my screen to show the console of my servers and tap the correct buttons in case of emergency… No need anymore for me to walk around with a laptop 24/7. Love (and need) all the non-character keys on the keyboard.
The only flaws are Microsoft WM6.1 ones, like slow response and hanging occasionally. I’m awaiting WM SP’s.
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HTC TP with more keys compare to Xperia X1 but sony ericsson smarter then HTC tp.They also got touch pad to use.Most of the panel and browsing sites can use the touch pad.No more arrow keys.HTC tp doesnt have touch pad and they got arrow keys.Useless.
Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 Always Smarter Choice.
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hej alla
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I would like to say the X1 is really great to handle to work it on for all typing workds rather than others…it gives more space to hold and work it on without any deal of getting other keys mistakes.
HTC better… X1 is the best
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